Jeremiah’s Symbolic Purchase of Land

¹The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. ²At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the prison compound attached to the palace of the king of Judah. ³For King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him, saying, “How dare you prophesy: ‘Thus said the Lord: I am delivering this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it. ⁴And King Zedekiah of Judah shall not escape from the Chaldeans; he shall be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak to him face to face and see him in person. ⁵And Zedekiah shall be brought to Babylon, there to remain until I take note of him—declares the Lord. When you wage war against the Chaldeans, you shall not be successful.’”

⁶Jeremiah said: The word of the Lord came to me: ⁷Hanamel, the son of your uncle Shallum, will come to you and say, “Buy my land in Anathoth, for you are next in succession to redeem it by purchase.” ⁸And just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the prison compound and said to me, “Please buy my land in Anathoth, in the territory of Benjamin; for the right of succession is yours, and you have the duty of redemption. Buy it.” Then I knew that it was indeed the word of the Lord.

⁹So I bought the land in Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. ¹⁰I wrote a deed, sealed it, and had it witnessed; and I weighed out the silver on a balance. ¹¹I took the deed of purchase, the sealed text and the open one according to rule and law, ¹²and gave the deed to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah in the presence of my kinsman Hanamel, of the witnesses who were named in the deed, and all the Judeans who were sitting in the prison compound. ¹³In their presence I charged Baruch as follows: ¹⁴Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: “Take these documents, this deed of purchase, the sealed text and the open one, and put them into an earthen jar, so that they may last a long time.” ¹⁵For thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: “Houses, fields, and vineyards shall again be purchased in this land.” [ . . . ]

⁴²For thus said the Lord: As I have brought this terrible disaster upon this people, so I am going to bring upon them the vast good fortune which I have promised for them. ⁴³And fields shall again be purchased in this land of which you say, “It is a desolation, without man or beast; it is delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans.”

⁴⁴Fields shall be purchased, and deeds written and sealed, and witnesses called in the land of Benjamin and in the environs of Jerusalem, and in the towns of Judah; the towns of the hill country, the towns of the Shephelah, and the towns of the Negeb. For I will restore their fortunes—declares the Lord.